🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <32f62d2e.31570835@news>, gregorie@see.sig.for.address (Martin
Gregorie) wrote:

> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
> 
> >In article <32f5b72c.1563549@news>,
> >Martin Gregorie <gregorie@see.sig.for.address> wrote:
> >>nxh...@leonard.anu.edu.au (Nathan Hand) wrote:
> >
> >>>Those who do not know history are doomed to relive it... poorly.
> >>As shown well by the computer industry:
> >
> >>- First there were mainframe O/S horrors such as OS/360 and its
> >>predecessors, but some people did better and built George II, Multics,
> >>and MCP
> >
> >       How was OS/360 so terrible?
> >
> OS/360 would have counted as OK if it had lived and died around 1965.
> By 1970 it was distinctly archaic. We're talking OS360/MFT, not MVS. 
> 
> You had to know the contemporary oposition at the time. Multics was
> past its prime and THAT could run 1000+ terrminals on a 24/365 basis
> over multiple CPUs. George II/III was running well in 1970; I was
> using it to run simultaneous batch & timeshare + RJE on a little 96Kb
> mainframe with 24 Mb disk - OS/MFT couldn't match that.  VAX/VMS still
> looks awfully like it owed a lot to George. You'll have to ask a
> Burroughs person about MCP
>  

Two comments that reflect my own sense of 'deja-vu' as an ex-mainframe
(IBM 370) programmer reading the current OS debates at times:

1) IBM's marketing style, from the 1960's onwards, relied as heavily on
the 'standardization' arguments still being used today as many of those in
favor of Wintel PC's do. Archetype, ca. 1965: 'You don't want to buy that
niche-market Univac, do you?'.... Over the past 30 years, this has
coagulated into something like a universal 'mindset' in many IT
departments, IMO.  

2) Criticisms of MacOS for being nothing more than a patchwork and a mess
to code for as a result. -- Ever seen IBM source code for MVS services,
etc.? Does the term 'PTF' ring a bell?.... In other words, patches upon
patches is nothing new in how legacy OS'es are maintained and upgraded
over the years. I had to contend with IBM source for their 10-year-old POS
system in 360 Assembly language and it was ugly -- very ugly..... But in
spite of what appeared to be poor design compared to making a 'clean
slate' of it all, still rock-solid. 

Just some thoughts.... Hopefully not too far off-topic. :-) 

Cheers,

-- 
Phil Brewster  <pjbrew @ ix. netcom. com>

".... if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet". 

-- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle [1996], p. 174